Rob Aley pointed me towards a new ebook he's created that wants to help you understand what kinds of things PHP can do "beyond the web" and the usual web-based applications - PHP Beyond the Web.

Leverage your existing web based PHP skills to write all types of software. CLI scripts, desktop software, network servers and more - this book will give you the tools, techniques and background necessary to write just about any type of software you can think of, using the PHP you know.

The book covers topics like interactive shell scripts, system daemons and desktop software. It also looks at some more general development topics like licensing, deployment and system interactions. If this sounds interesting and you want a sample of the content, check out the table of contents or the sample chapter.